Heredity
by Assimbya
Summary: Quincey Harker searches for the truth of his heritage. Post-novel, AU to post-script.


21 November 1911

I don't remember England. I remember mother telling me of it when I was very young, describing London and Whitby, but her accounts seem now only vague and fantastical stories. And before I was much older than ten she had stopped talking of England altogether.

I was born in England, but we came to Transylvania when I was only two years old, soon after the death of my natural father, Jonathan Harker. Sometimes I think I remember the journey here, at least in pieces. The length of it must have made an impression on me, as young as I was. I can vaguely recall a long and bumpy carriage ride, peering out of windows at mountains that looked very large and frightening, though they form the landscape that is now the only home I know. But I remember nothing of England.

I've read many books about it though, and it's always seemed an exciting place to me. In all the novels that take place in London, by Dickens or Collins or Gissing, so much is always happening. People rush about, through crowded streets. They fall in love, they fall in with thieves, they investigate murders. Here nothing ever changes.

I've told father that I would like to go to university in England. He said that he would consider it. I thought of discussing it with mother, who I'm certain would approve of my going, but I don't expect this to be an arena in which enlisting her to talk to father on my behalf would be very useful. In fact, such attempts have rarely turned out well. I can just imagine what father would say - "You must speak to me directly. This house is not a kingdom, and we do not make alliances." Ha. It would be dreadfully humorous, if it weren't all so serious. I want to go to university. It's time I started thinking about my future.

The first several years mother and I lived here were hard. I know that. Everyone says it. I know I remember parts. I remember being frightened, maybe because our house is so big. When I try to imagine the house where mother lived with Jonathan Harker before coming here, I picture something like the little houses in the village. I think father's home could seem very large and frightening to a child after that. And, of course, I was around mother very little in those early days, which must have been a great change for me. I've read how being separated from one's mother can be very upsetting to a young child. Not that I was abandoned - there have always been plenty of people to take care of me - but I was young, and may not have understood that. Even now, I know that I can find it disconcerting when mother weeps for nights on end, though I know it's all for her own good.

Father's other wives cared for me in those early years, when mother was new to everything. I'm sure they did the best they could, but none of them have ever had a child, and, through no fault of their own, they didn't quite know what to do with me. I was left alone more than most children my age, I think. Later, when things settled down, father saw how I was growing up with so little guidance and began to take a hand in my schooling, teaching me how to read and write and do sums, and how to speak and write well in English, Romanian, and Latin. A little later, mother could start helping to teach me as well, for she was a schoolteacher when she lived in England, and knew how to teach such things to children. But, in the beginning, it was just father.

When I was eleven or twelve, father took me down to the village below the castle for the first time. I hadn't been out of the house since we first came from England. I remember how it seemed odd to me, the way everyone stared at us. Father didn't seem to care, or even to notice them. He referred to me as his son, and then they stared even more.

Of late, I've been asking mother a great deal about Jonathan Harker. I know that it matters far more who raised me than who originally created me, yet I can't help but be curious. Mother avoids the subject, however, and it's difficult to get any real answers from her. I've found out that he was a solicitor, though from all I've read I can't seem to figure out quite what a solicitor does. She won't talk about what he was like as a person, which is the most interesting thing. I could ask father, of course, but I doubt that he would be happy to hear the question.

22 November 1911

In the past few months, I've taken to wandering alone through the village during the day, when my family is asleep. I tell myself that I want only to see if I can learn to ignore the stares as well as father does, but really I'm curious. I know that they're only peasants, but I've had such little opportunity to be around other humans. I even go into the inn sometimes and order a meal. They serve me willingly enough, and take father's gold in payment, but they avoid talking to me when they can, and everything goes quiet when I come in.

But, yesterday evening, the strangest thing happened. There was a gentleman in the village, a man who I had never seen before. He was clearly a traveller there, for he dressed like one of the illustrations in my English novels, and looked about at everything with the greatest perplexity. He was a little taller than me, with hair just beginning to go gray. He seemed a little older than the appearance that father most often takes. As I was heading home (it was nearly sundown), he stopped me and asked, in Romanian so messy and badly accented that I could barely understand it, if I knew the way to Castle Dracula.

I, of course, was extremely surprised, because no one, other than the gypsies, ever comes to the castle. So I asked him what was his business, for I lived there and we were not expecting visitors.

At that, he looked more intently at me and then started back, as though he had seen something he had not expected in my face. Switching rather abruptly to English, he asked me what my name was.

I told him it was Quincey Harker, and this time he started back even more violently, as though he had seen a ghost. After a moment in which he seemed to be thinking very hard, he asked me if I would wait a moment for him to fetch his traveling companion, who was eating a meal at the inn. I repeated my inquiry regarding his business at the castle, to which he replied that he and his companion were old friends of my mother's, and were searching for her.

Now, this was already turning out to be the most exciting evening in recent memory, and far too interesting a possibility to ignore, so I told him that of course I would wait for his companion, and I would show them to the castle myself.

(Of course, I did consider the idea that father might not be very happy to see these unexpected visitors, but, I confess, the idea of being able to so thoroughly irritate him did have its attraction. He is my father, after all. Am I not allowed to needle him a bit?)

On the way there, the first man and his companion (who looked a little younger and, perhaps, a little more handsome than the first man) very skillfully avoided telling me anything about them at all. I asked them all the questions I could think of, but the only one to which I could get a straight answer was when I asked them what the meaning was of the little gold pendant which the second man wore around his neck. It was not a subject in which I was particularly interested, but I wanted an answer to something.

They seemed enormously surprised at my question. "You have never seen a crucifix before?" the second man asked me, and I replied that no, I had not, and was it perhaps some English patriotic symbol?

The two men looked at one another in an almost frightened manner (I found it a bit comic), and then the first one said that it was the sacred emblem of Our Lord in Heaven, and could be used to drive away the forces of evil. I told him that it sounded a great deal like the things I had read about in the Bible, which I understood was a book highly thought of in England. To that they seemed to have no response.

We made good time to the castle, as I took them round all the back roads, the ones the gypsies used when they wanted to get to the castle quickly, and, though the men didn't seem much used to this much walking over irregular territory, they moved quite quickly. Sunset had passed by that time, and I was sure that mother must be looking for me. I brought them into the front hall. Someone in my family would come to see who I had brought with me quickly enough.

It was mother who came first. She was horribly surprised to see them - clearly this was not a visit she expected. For a moment, she just stood and stared. The two men stared too, and exchanged expressions as though trying to speak in code with their eyebrows. I had wanted to simply watch without interfering in the meeting, but the long silence almost made me interrupt with an introduction when mother asked the two men, very quietly, "What are you doing here?"

The second man started forward towards her, but stopped when she flinched. He must not know her well at all, if he doesn't know not to make sudden moves around her. The first man put a hand on the second man's forearm, and gave him a solemn look as though to restrain him before turning to mother and beginning to speak, his voice cautious and placating "Mina, we've been looking -"

But she cut him off. She was looking down at the floor and her voice was still quiet. "It's been fourteen years. You can't expect -"

But, this time, the first man cut her off. "We tried as best we could. There was no evidence -"

And then the second man cut him off. I wondered if this was the way old friends always acted together, never letting the one another finish their sentences. "He'd covered his tracks better that time. We couldn't even be sure of what happened. We checked the registers for every boat leaving England -"

Mother laughed, briefly. "We did not leave by sea."

The second man tried to smile back, but the smile was not very convincing. "That would explain it, then."

The first man started speaking again. "And we didn't know if, when we found you -"

Mother flinched, as though he had hit her. And, again, she laughed, but this time she sounded so bitter that I could hardly believe it was her. "You know now. Your fears were accurate."

"It doesn't matter," the second man said, "we don't care. We'll take you - you and your son - Jonathan's son - away from here, and then we'll manage from there."

I still didn't know what they were talking about, but it was clear now that it involved me. I truly didn't understand. Take us away? Why? And where would we go? I stayed quiet, for I thought that if I drew attention to myself they might stop speaking so openly.

Mother closed her eyes. "You don't understand. What you suggest is impossible. You should leave here at once -"

Then, of course, father arrived, with his characteristic perfect timing. Everyone froze, and, though father's voice was courteous, I could tell he was not pleased.

"Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward. It has been some years since I last had the pleasure of your company. You do know that, in my country, it is considered a great rudeness to enter a house without an invitation from the master of it?"

"They had an invitation," I said, "from me."

"Did they?" At the chill in his voice I wanted to flinch just as mother had, but was ashamed before these visitors. "I do not recall giving you such privileges. But we have more immediate concerns for the present. How did you become acquainted with these men?"

"They were in the village," I told him. "asking for directions. I gave them my name, and they told me they were friends of mother's."

"Quincey, come here." I did, and he put his hands on my shoulders. "Several years ago, these men tried to kill me. By inviting them into my house you have welcomed in those who would have been our murderers."

I felt sick. Whatever I had imagined, it was not this.

"We wouldn't have killed Jonathan's son," the second man said, more, it seemed, to mother and I than to father.

"Would you not have?" father asked, "You were willing enough to kill your own bride."

The man (Lord Godalming?) blanched, which is always more noticeable in humans than in the undead. He said nothing, though, to defend himself.

"My quarrel with you is done," father told them, "and though the insolence of your blithe invasion of my home offends me, I am inclined to be merciful, if you leave without delay. I wish to see no more of you."

A great surge of admiration welled in me, as well as shame for my own unthinking mistake. How noble father seemed, granting clemency to these boorish, brutal humans who would have killed him! How fortunate I was, to have been raised in my own family, and not among common mortals.

But then, I heard a dull snap, and suddenly, Godalming was rushing towards father, holding in his hand something small and gleaming - I realized, belatedly, that it was the crucifix he had been wearing around his neck.

"Take that from him, Quincey," father said, and vanished into the stone.

(I should pause for a moment to clarify, as it is my understanding that such magical feats are not the norm in most households. Father could not do such a thing anywhere, but the castle has been his home for centuries upon centuries, so long that I cannot even imagine, and he can perform all sorts of tricks with the stone and the doors and the keyholes. It can be frustrating at times, knowing that he shall hear of whatever is said or done within the walls of the castle, but, at this moment, I noticed its utility.)

I did not know why the little Christian emblem was such a danger, but I did as I was told. It was a struggle, but he was older and weaker than I, and I managed to wrest the crucifix from his hands. Curiously, the other man (Seward) did not come to his assistance. I looked at the crucifix in my palms. It seemed so small, and harmless. Did father fear it? Why?

And father was suddenly present again, this time standing behind mother, his hands on her shoulders. "I have asked you to leave once already," he said, "if you do not do so now you may not expect to live out the night. Go."

They left. I felt relieved that the danger was ended, but, I admit, disappointment was heavy in me as well. There had been so much that was intriguing about the men and their visit, and now I would probably never know who they were, or how they knew mother, or why they had tried to kill father years before.

Father has confined me to my bedroom, from which I now write these words. He says that I have behaved with great irresponsibility, and I am not to leave the castle until he is certain that I shall commit no more foolishness. I do not like being locked in, but I am used to it. Mother was crying when the men left, but I shall have no opportunity to speak to her for a while yet - father took her downstairs and I know that she is still there because Adria brought me dinner which was only bread and cheese and apples. Mother is the only who still remembers how to cook.

Father didn't take the crucifix away from me. It is in my pocket now, and it feels as heavy as a secret.

"Well," said Arthur over dinner, "we certainly made a mess of that."

"It's my fault," Jack assured him, "I should have known better than to be so trusting. I just thought, with Jonathan's son - I couldn't have imagined he would lead us into danger that way. And I know I had absolutely no reason to trust him as I did, but the resemblance was so striking." He picked up his fork, but was finding it difficult to eat.

"I trusted him too," Arthur replied, "you bear no more responsibility than I. But the boy is obviously mad. To defend the Count as he did -"

"Mad may not be the proper word, but his perception is certainly warped. Imagine a child growing up in the place - it hardly bears consideration."

"We'll have to get him out, of course." Arthur's voice was steady.

"I would like to, but I can't imagine how we shall. If he doesn't come willingly, I'm not going to be party to a kidnapping, even for his own good."

"If only," Arthur insisted, "we could somehow talk to Mina -"

Jack did not want to say to Arthur the words with which he knew he must answer, but he did, however reluctantly. "Mina is lost to us now, Art. We know that, and she does too. You could see it in her eyes, when she looked at us."

"We will not give up," Arthur said, "not on her, nor on her son. Jonathan's son. We failed them both once already, and we will not do so again."

23 November 1911, early morning

I have been foolish. I think I have never been so foolish in my entire life.

You see, I do detest being confined, even within my own bedroom (have I written this already? This journal is a new habit of mine, and unfamiliar). I have always, as long as I can remember, detested it (once, I recall, Ileana made some quiet joke about my detestation being 'inherited,' and mother glared at her). So I was grateful when father came to me and said that he would unlock my door now, as a sign of his trust in me, though he would expect me to remain still in the bedroom until he gave me permission to leave. I appreciated that he would make such a gesture of his trust, when I had only so recently betrayed his trust by leading those men into our home. I knelt, and kissed his hand in demonstration of my gratitude. I think he was pleased by this - I think he understood the sincerity of that formal, accustomed gesture. He told me to continue working on my Horace.

(He's been saying for a while that I'm ready to start Greek, and that I really ought to do so, that anyone who wishes to understand the world at all must be able to read Homer in the original, but I still mean to - oh, blast it all, this isn't important right now, I don't need to be writing this -)

Normally, I an not overly bothered by the sounds of the castle at night, the singing of the wind, the strange voices, the echoes. I remember even thinking of it as soothing, when I was younger, as though the whole castle was alive around me. But, last night, it unsettled me. I thought about how I did not know, not really, where the noises came from, just as I did not know so many things - why those men had tried to kill father, how father and mother met, what it really meant to be undead, or anything (anything) about Jonathan Harker, my natural father. And no one in the world seemed likely to answer those questions. I thought about how I was becoming a man (father was only a year older than me when he first became voivode of Wallachia), and how that didn't seem to be changing anything, it didn't mean that I was given any more answers, and father could still order me to remain in my bedroom as he did when I was a boy.

I felt tired, so tired of secrets.

And so quietly, cautiously, I left my bedroom, even though I had been forbidden to do so.

A thrill of pleasurable excitement went through me - I am finding that it is nearly always pleasant, at least at first, to do forbidden things. I began, partly deliberately and partly through pure instinct, to move towards the source of the noises I heard.

It took a while, for even after growing up here I still find the castle to be a labyrinth, but eventually I came to the source of the noises - a lit room, a door ajar. I crept towards it, silently as I could, and peered into the light.

I do not want to write this part. My hand is shaking, and I know my handwriting shall be nearly illegible. It doesn't matter. I must finish this.

I saw Ecaterina first, holding a child in her arms - I could not tell its age or sex, but it was young enough to be easily held, and old enough that it could not have been called an infant. The child was making soft, whimpering sounds, which must have been the source of some of the noise I heard. She moved swiftly, in a blur of yellow hair, and then the child was screaming, so loud that I gasped at it, though I am not unused to screams. My sight of what had caused that scream was blurred, as mother moved in front of the door - I could tell her brown hair apart from that of the other wives. Caterina's voice saying, "Your turn," and mother held out her arms for the child. In them, it quieted - she was soothing it with little noises, such as she must have used with me. For an instant, I too felt soothed - this was strange, this was unknown, but it was all right -

And then she lowered her head and the child was screaming again.

Ileana's voice, "Hurry, don't finish it all." Mother stepping forward, handing away the screaming child.

The child kept screaming and screaming, until it stopped, with horrible abruptness. I heard a dull thud, like a body hitting the floor.

I was breathing heavily, and, with their horrible activity finished, they must have heard me. The door through which I was peering was roughly pulled open, and I saw all four of them looking at me. Their mouths were smeared with blood. The body of the child lay face-first on the floor, forgotten.

I could not stop staring at mother. She would not look at me, as though she was ashamed. Adria drew her away. It was Ecaterina who addressed me directly - "Go," she said, her voice like ice-covered trees, "you were not to have seen this."

I went back to my bedroom, where I wait now, for father to come and, no doubt, punish me. I have not been able to sleep, or focus on anything. It keeps coming up again in my mind, the image of mother with blood all over her mouth, that child's screams, the body lying neglected. This is like a nightmare. I knew, of course I knew, that my family is not human, that they do not live as mortals live, but I had never thought - a child -

Perhaps I've been naive. I've known, always how the peasants fear father. I've heard the whispers about burials, children gone missing, wolves coming in the night. But I couldn't think - I don't know, something in me rebelled against the thought - I'm human, I was once a child living in this castle like that one there. And I don't know why I'm still alive, when that one is dead.

My mind is a whirlpool. There is so much I do not understand.

24 November, 1911

Just keep writing, Quincey. Just keep writing.

Father came to speak to me. I can tell when he's furious, though he does not rage or scream like the angry fathers in novels. But his edges are sharper, somehow. I am going to try and put down the words of the conversation as exactly as possible, though I shall not be able to get it exactly right. But I feel I must try to remember this.

"You have disobeyed me," he said, "I expected you to know better than that."

"I am sorry, father," I said, but I did not kneel or beg forgiveness. I was still angry, still shaken. "But I do not think I can be blamed for disobedience when it was the only means I had for gaining information. There are things that have been kept from me, and I must know -"

"Must you?" he laughed. "Curiosity as justification for misdeeds. How like your father."

I did not understand for a moment; I thought perhaps that he was softening towards me, drawing a comparison to some foolishness from his own youth, though that seemed unlike him. But the name of Jonathan Harker pounded loud as my blood. "What do you mean?"

"He too went where he was forbidden to go. And he too saw what he ought not have seen. Heredity, it seems, is a pull that cannot be refused."

"I don't understand. I don't understand. Father -"

"You cannot know how much you look like him. It seems you have inherited his character as well - petty, prying, righteous. I should have known when I saw you among those peasants - a gentlemanly ethnographer, just as he was."

"You always said -" I was having trouble speaking clearly; I was overwhelmed. "You always said that it didn't matter, who my natural father was, my inheritance was from you, you raised me, you educated me, there was my loyalty and allegiance - I don't understand."

"I have been a fool. I should have killed you fourteen years ago."

The words hit me like a stone plummeting at my stomach. I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. The worst thing was his calm, his pleasant voice, so like the one with which he had spoken to me when teaching me Latin, when correcting my English pronunciation. This was my father. My father. I wished, in that moment, that Jonathan Harker had never existed, nor England, nor bustling London, nor those intriguing visitors who had stirred up so many questions for me. I wished there was nothing dividing me from my father, no circumstances that could have brought such words from his mouth.

"You wouldn't have done that." I wanted it to be true; I wanted it so badly.

"I would have," he corrected politely, "if Mina had not begged for your life so fervently. She was beautiful, kneeling in the spreading pool of Jonathan's blood, begging that I spare her son, promising that she would cease her resistance if only I did so. I was magnanimous then, against my better judgment. I should have known better than to bring a human child into my castle, to divide Mina's loyalties and serve as Jonathan's ever-present reminder. But I will correct my mistake now."

More emotions warred within me than I had ever known before, but foremost among them was terror. Cold, burgeoning terror, with the image of the body of that child playing over and over in my mind. Father took a step towards me, idly, unconcerned. He reached out a hand for me -

I grabbed the crucifix I had hidden under my pillow and pressed it against the palm he extended towards me. Father did not make a sound, but there was a hiss of searing flesh. The image of the crucifix had burnt into his skin.

I felt myself shaking. I put the chain around my neck.

"Clever," father said. His eyes were gleaming with red, and I could see his fangs. "I see you require me to proceed more slowly, as I did against Jonathan. Perhaps that is for the best. I need Mina to be a part of this, in order that she may lose any mortal sentiment that still remains in her. Good night, Quincey Harker."

He left. I heard the key turning in the lock.

I must get out. I must get out, and I must not think about all of this, not till I am safe and away and can look at everything that has just happened as an outsider, objectively. If ever I can do that.

I am going to try something from the novels I have read, and escape out my window. I am only on the third floor, and I can try and tie my bedsheets together to make a rope. I don't know if this will work; I don't know if I shall survive. But I must try to escape.

I hope that Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward have not yet left for England.

The young man who rushed into the inn was wild-eyed and trembling. For a moment, it was as though they were seeing Jonathan himself in one of his moments of terror. The crucifix stood out bright and gleaming on his breast.

Arthur led him to a seat, and Jack ordered him a bowl of warm soup, then the two men sat down on either side of him. He seemed truly mad now; he seemed like he could have done anything, could have begun screaming or weeping or pulled out a knife. The others in the inn seemed to be avoiding looking at him.

But the only thing that Quincey Harker did was looking at Arthur and Jack and say, in a voice of almost unearthly calm, "Tell me about my parents. I want to know everything."


End file.
